Archive for the ‘Non-Proliferation’ Category

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit Russia March 17-18, with Russo-US ties sorely strained by US missile defense plans, officials said Wednesday.US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testifies during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit Russia March 17-18, with Russo-US ties sorely strained by US missile defense plans, officials said Wednesday.(AFP/GETTY IMAGES/Mark Wilson)
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With Iran, the Middle East, and Kosovo’s declaration of independence also on the agenda, Rice and Gates will meet with their counterparts and seek talks with President Vladimir Putin and president-elect Dmitry Medvedev, aides said.

Putin and US President George W. Bush agreed in a telephone call last week that the talks, a follow up to a similar round in October 2007, would be “a good idea,” said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino.

“The agenda will cover a broad range of bilateral strategic issues, including missile defense, post-START arrangements, cooperation on non-proliferation as well as counterterrorism,” she said.

The last such visit by a Russian leader to Iran was by Josef Stalin in December 1943 for a secret summit with Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. The British leader wanted the next major allied invasion to target Europe’s soft underbelly in the Balkans. The Soviet dictator and the U.S. president outvoted him. Thus, the decision was reached to make the invasion of France, which took place seven months later in 1944, the next geostrategic priority. This second summit, 64 years later, could also prove momentous — down the road.

A report of an assassination plot against Mr. Putin caused a slight delay in the Russian president’s departure for Tehran, which added a touch of melodrama.

Vladimir Putin’s objective appeared to be to deter a future U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. He warned the United States not to use a former Soviet Republic to mount such an attack. Azerbaijan had been rumored as a staging base.

After his one-on-one with the much-reviled (in the West) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Putin chaired a summit of the presidents of the five Caspian Sea states — Russia, Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. They all warned the U.S. not to attack Iran and agreed the Non-Proliferation Treaty is “one of the basic pillars of international security and stability.” This also gives them the right to pursue “research, production, and use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes” under the less than watchful eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).